essed to have an
extraordinary desire to see the city from the house-top. I had never
been any higher up than the third story of any house I had been in, and
could not, I told her, go any higher in the house in which I was then
living. Might I go up on her roof? Her eyes opened, but she was of an
amiable, inconsequent disposition and let me have my way without too
much opposition.

One glance at the spot I was most interested in, and I found myself too
dizzy to look further.

In the center of Mrs. Ransome's roof there was to be seen what I can
best describe as an extended cupola without windows. As there was no
other break visible in the roof, the top of this must have held the
skylight, which, being thus lifted many feet above the level of the
garret floor, would admit air and light enough to the boarded-up space
below, but would make any effort to be heard or seen, on the part of any
one secreted there, quite ineffectual.

The resolution I took was worthy of an older head and a more disciplined
heart. By means that were fair, or by means that were foul, I meant to
win my way into that boarded-up attic and see for myself if the words
hidden away in my vinaigrette were true. To do this openly would cause
a scandal I was yet too much under my husband's influence to risk;
while to do it secretly meant the obtaining of keys which I had every
reason to believe he kept hidden about his person. How was I to obtain
them? I saw no way, but that did not deter me from starting at once
down-town in the hope of being struck by some brilliant idea while
waiting for him in his office.

Was it instinct that suggested this, or was the hand of Providence in
all that I did at this time? I had no sooner seated myself in the little
room, where I had been accustomed to wait for him, than I saw what sent
the blood tinkling to my finger-tips in sudden hope. It was my husband's
vest hanging in one corner, the vest he had worn down-town that morning.
The day was warm and he had taken it off. If the key should be in it!

I had never done a mean or underhanded thing before in my life, but I
sprang at that vest without the least hesitation, and fingering it was
the lightest of touches, found in the smallest of inside pockets a key,
which instinct immediately told me was that of the door I had once
endeavored to pass.

Dropping the key into my pocket, I went back into the outer room, and
leaving word that I had remembered a little shopping w